Final Thoughts

From the thousands and thousands of benchmarks and tests that I've done over the years, this is one of the most exciting as there's not much difference between Intel and AMD with the graphics cards that we've tested here today: GTX 1060 FE, GTX 1070 FE, and RX Vega 56.

I see it all the time, either online, on Facebook, or even when I'm in a retail store somewhere: people wanting to buy the Core i7 or Ryzen 7 because they've seen it's "faster" than the Core i3/i5 and Ryzen 3/5. But for gaming purposes alone, is it worth it? Not really, no.

Intel prices its Core i3-7350K at $149, while the Core i7-7700K is $299... double the price. Does it offer double the gaming performance? No. Does it offer double the synthetic/multi-threaded CPU performance for applications like video editing, encoding, etc. - yes, definitely.

Keep in mind the extra $150 you spend on the CPU would typically go into a higher-end board, so let's look at the price of the GIGABYTE AORUS Z270X-Gaming K7 motherboard that costs $182.90 on Amazon right now, adding another $70 to the total cost, pushing us up to $220+ more than buying the Core i3-7350K + GIGABYTE GA-Gaming B8 motherboard.

That $220 is the difference between the Core i3/Core i7 and the respective motherboards, could be pumped into a much better graphics card. There is a $200 price gap between the GeForce GTX 1060 and GTX 1070, so gamers could opt for the Core i3, and then spend more money on their graphics card.

Alternatively, gamers could spend the additional $200 on a better gaming display - especially if they needed to buy one anyway. That $200 will score you a 2560x1440 @ 60Hz panel, or a good 1080p 120/144Hz gaming panel. We've shown you that running Medium detail (and most games go lower, with Low/Lowest presets) that will give you 100FPS+ in major titles like Battlegrounds, League of Legends, or CS:GO.

The tests on the AMD Ryzen 3 1300X system were interesting, considering how damn cheap the bundle is for the Ryzen 3 1300X + motherboard. Even more interesting when you stick to Team Red and bundle it with the Radeon RX Vega 56, which is a great alternative to the GTX 1070.

Grabbing the RX Vega 56 over the GTX 1070 makes sense if you're starting new and building a gaming PC, especially in the heights of the Battlegrounds hype. You will need a gaming display, with FreeSync displays being much cheaper than G-Sync alternatives.

This is where big savings can happen, with another couple of hundred dollars being saved on a FreeSync display that you can pump into other areas of the gaming PC: peripherals (mouse, keyboard, headset = all expensive for higher-end gear).

All-in-all, this was one of the more exciting articles I've worked on... so coming up next: Intel Core i5-7600K versus Ryzen 5 1500X. After that, all four of those configurations + 7700K and Ryzen 7 1800X in Battlegrounds. Keep your eyes peeled on TweakTown!

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